Senior and military pricing sounds like one setting. In Altru it’s really three separate decisions: where the discount lives, how a person proves they qualify, and what happens a year later when they renew. Get the first one right and the other two are much easier.
This guide covers the options for admission and memberships, the trade-offs of each, and the parts that are honestly awkward in Altru so you can plan around them instead of discovering them at renewal time.
Decide what you’re actually discounting
Admission and membership behave differently, so treat them separately.
- Admission (daily sales and advance sales): the discount applies to one visit. The person is standing in front of you or buying online for a specific date.
- Membership: the discount applies to a term that will come up for renewal. Whatever you build has to survive the renewal cycle, including online renewals and any reminder mailings driven by queries.
Many organizations end up using a different technique for each, and that’s fine.
Option 1: Separate price types for admission
For general admission, the cleanest approach is usually a dedicated price type, such as “Senior” or “Military,” alongside Adult and Child. Cashiers pick it at the register, and it shows up as its own line in sales reports, so you can see exactly how many discounted tickets you sold without building a special query.
Things to settle before you build it:
- Does it appear online? If you add the price type to your online ticketing, buyers can select it themselves. Decide whether you’re comfortable with the honor system plus an ID check at the door.
- Who’s included? “Military” can mean active duty only, or also veterans and dependents. Write the rule down so the desk and the website say the same thing.
- Does it stack with other discounts? A senior who is also a member probably shouldn’t get both. Test the combination before you go live.
Option 2: A discount applied to the order
Altru also lets you set up discounts that are applied to an order rather than baked into a price type. These work well for percentage-off offers and for promotions you want to switch on and off without touching your ticket pricing. Online, a discount like this is typically tied to a promotional code.
The weak spot for senior and military pricing is the code itself. Once a code is posted anywhere, it spreads, and you have no way to know who used it legitimately. If you go this route, share the code through channels that already screen eligibility (a base’s family readiness office, a veterans’ group, a senior center) and still ask for ID at entry.
Option 3: Dedicated membership levels
For memberships, the approach that holds up best over time is a separate level, such as “Senior Individual” or “Military Family,” within your membership program. The discounted price is the level’s price, so:
- Online buyers can choose it directly, with no code to hand out.
- Renewals come back at the same discounted price, because the member is renewing the level they already hold.
- Reporting is simple: count members by level.
The cost is a longer list of levels. If you already have Individual, Dual, Family, and several giving tiers, adding a senior and military version of each can get unwieldy fast. Most organizations only create discounted versions of the two or three most popular levels.
A membership discount applied at the time of sale (rather than a separate level) is the other path. Before relying on it, confirm how that discount behaves on renewal and on any automatic or online renewal process you use. Behavior here depends on your configuration, so test a full join-then-renew cycle in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support rather than assuming it carries forward.
The real gap: Altru doesn’t verify eligibility
Whatever you build, Altru prices the transaction; it doesn’t check anyone’s age or service record. Automatically granting a discount online because a constituent record carries a “Senior” or “Military” attribute isn’t something we’d count on working out of the box. If that’s the behavior you want, confirm with Blackbaud whether your version supports it before designing around it.
What you can do is record eligibility once you’ve seen proof:
- Create a constituent attribute (or use an existing one) for Senior, Military, Veteran, and so on.
- Have desk staff add it the first time they check ID, with the date verified.
- Build a query of members on discounted levels who don’t have the matching attribute. That list is your audit: people who self-selected online and haven’t yet been verified in person.
The attribute also pays off for marketing. Veterans Day and Memorial Day outreach, senior-morning programming, and grant reporting on service to military families all get easier when the data is already on the record.
A setup that works for most sites
- Admission: Senior and Military price types, available online, with ID checked at entry.
- Membership: discounted versions of your most popular one or two levels, available online without a code.
- Verification: a constituent attribute added at first in-person visit, plus a periodic query to catch unverified records.
- Policy: one written definition of who qualifies, used word for word on the website, at the desk, and in renewal notices.
Quick answers
Should seniors and military share one discount?
You can, but separate price types or levels give you cleaner reporting, and the two groups often get different rates or eligibility rules anyway.
Will a discounted member renew at full price?
If the discount is the level price, renewals stay discounted. If it’s a one-time discount applied at purchase, test renewal behavior before you launch, because the answer depends on your setup.
Do I need a code for online sales?
Not if you use a price type or membership level. Codes are only necessary when the discount is applied to the order.
